Pacino's Pixilated Princess

Aug. 23 -- She's an actress-director-singer-poet-philanthropist, but she's not real. In hyphen-happy Hollywood, maybe that's not important.

Introducing Simone, the digital creation of down-on-his-luck director Victor Taransky, who is desperate to save his career after his spoiled-rotten leading lady walks off the set.

Taransky is played by Al Pacino, and the pouty actress is Winona Ryder. But who plays the title character in Simone? The movie's credits don't include her name.

As a marketing gimmick, New Line Cinema kept the secret under wraps for two years, hoping to create buzz.

"What does it matter if celebrities are real?" asks writer-director Andrew Niccol, who takes on media-driven reality, as he did in The Truman Show.

"Our celebrity-obsessed culture can't tell the difference anyway. Our ability to manufacture fraud exceeds our ability to detect it."

As Pacino's character says, "It's easier to make 100,000 people believe than just one."A Dash of Hepburn, a Touch of Kelly

Now we know that Pacino's pixilated princess is Rachel Roberts, a Canadian model who has been on the covers of Vogue and Elle and appeared in the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

In the film, a dying computer programmer gives Pacino experimental software that will allow him to splice together style, looks and talents of great actresses from a library of legends. He takes a dash Audrey Hepburn, mixes in Grace Kelly, and some contemporary beauties.

Presto! The results are Franken-actress Simone. Best of all, she delivers the lines exactly how Pacino wants. He speaks through a mike and the words come out of her mouth.

This new star is quirky, so reclusive that she insists her scenes are shot without other actors and spliced into the film, leaving her a mystery to everyone but Taransky — who suddenly becomes the hottest director in town.

But like any mad scientist, Pacino's Taransky is all but destroyed by his creation.

"What made her attractive was that he was able to express all the things he wanted to about the business and the treatment he's had by people in higher places," Pacino says.